John Nolan/Times photo
Farmington High School seniors Tamlin Soucy, left, Greg Brannan, center, and Lars Bolduc illustrate that the cylindrical wheel is not the only way to go. Their project tied for first place at the state expo in Concord.

FARMINGTON — For the United States to remain competitive in the coming decades, the students of today will have to be the scientists, inventors and engineers of tomorrow. Farmington High School teacher Stephen Pascucci is playing an important role, at local level, in making this happen.

Pascucci, now in his fifth year teaching science at FHS, has an enthusiasm for his field that is infectious, as measured by the growing participation of Farmington students in both the local science fair and the New Hampshire Science and Engineering Expo, which was held in Concord on March 14.

“We have five teams from the school going this year,” said Pascucci, speaking the day before the event. Two years ago only one Farmington team took part, and last year, there were two teams.

This year, in the FHS gymnasium, there were 160 projects on display, and not a single one involved volcanoes or planetary systems. Most involved fieldwork and experimentation, resulting in charts and leading to conclusions.

The team comprising Rachel Landry and Brittany Murphy, for instance, wished to find which of several well-known energy drinks was most effective, and so they recruited four volunteers to swig a potion on consecutive days and then run a timed mile. After their charts were filled in and the numbers totted up, they were able to conclude that 5-Hour Energy produced the fastest times for the runners.

Click image to enlarge

John Nolan/Times photo
Farmington High School Students Zach Maynard, Kevin Radcliffe and Jared Gorton conducted a scientific experiment that was right on target.

“They are a couple of smart kids,” said Pascucci.

Three other students, Zack Maynard, Kevin Radcliffe and Jared Gorton, archers all, did experiments to find out which homemade (and free) materials produced the most satisfactory target for arrows. They constructed wooden boxes tightly packed with cardboard, Styrofoam and sheets of paper, and fired arrows into them using bows of varying poundage and shooting from several distances. Packed paper proved quite feasible as a target, but Styrofoam mashed up too easily.

“This project is Concord-worthy,” said Pascucci, looking over the experiment, and the way in which it was presented.

One of the five teams that did travel to Concord consisted of a trio of seniors displaying their project: Reinventing the Wheel. The blurb on a display sheet read “Purpose: To examplify the use of spheres as an alternative to the common cylindrical tire.”

Tamlin Soucy, Greg Brannan and Lars Bolduc, between them, have constructed a miniature vehicle, the golf ball wheels of which are rotated by means of electrically powered rubber tracks. On a larger scale, they demonstrate, by way of a belt-driven basketball, the concept of forward movement that can rapidly be converted to sideways motion for such useful tricks as parking a car in a tight space. Soucy is going on to college to study business, Brannan to study mechanical engineering and Bolduc to study electrical engineering.

Last Thursday evening, Pascucci shared happy news from the state expo.

“It was a great day,” he said. “Every group gets interviewed by a judge four times, and then the challenge groups — the egg drop and the mousetrap cars — have the competition part of the evaluation.

“Our engineering group, Greg, Lars and Tamlin, with An Alternative to Tires, tied with two other groups for first place. Our egg drop teams beat out two other teams to take first place — Mike Cook and Zach Lessard — and second place— Bridgett Bonar. Our mousetrap teams were the only contestants with Garrett Wedge and Shane Hill taking first place and second place going to Aaron Johnson and Matt Bowden.”

“Everyone came home with hardware! It was a very nice time out, indeed!” said a delighted Pascucci.